GDC 游戏产业报告：40% 开发者在工作中使用生成式 AI

Survey project lead Beth Elderkin lays bare the mood of the industry, the job market, and how people are making games

40% of developers are using generative AI in their work, according to the latest State of the Game Industry report from the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

That's an increase of 4% on the previous report, but survey project lead and content marketing manager Beth Elderkin notes that this is a smaller increase than last time.

57% of developers using the tech employ it for text generation, research, early prototyping, coding, and presentations. Generative AI is most popular with business operations and services, mobile-only studios, and free-to-play developers.

27% of AAA workers feel encouraged or pressured to use generative AI; 9% of indie developers say the same.

"People just know the technology now, and it's an actuality instead of a theoretical issue"

55% of respondents said that AI is having a negative impact on games, a 1% increase year-on-year; where previously this topic was the subject of larger percentage swings, now it has calmed down.

"What appeared to me based on the data is that the technology was not necessarily theoretical, but still early in those first two years," Elderkin tells GamesIndustry.biz.

"Last year, for the survey prior to this one, it was more part of the everyday conversation. But in this past year, it has completely changed in terms of what people know about it, how people use it, and how often people use it. So I don't know if the battle lines have been drawn. I think it's more that people just know the technology now, and it's an actuality instead of a theoretical issue, so they know how they want to use it or whether they want to use it at all."

Jobs and funding

33% of respondents have been laid off in the last 24 months, and around half said that their company had conducted layoffs. 68% of AAA staffers say that their studio has cut jobs, while 35% of respondents from more established studios have made redundancies. For younger indies, this figure is just 14%. 54% of those who have been made redundant have not found another job; 25% say they have applied for at least 100 jobs.

Looking at co-development, almost half of respondents work for studios that have used some form of external development in the last 12 months. 16% of staff at non-co-development studios say that their companies have started to offer co-development services as a means of generating extra income or diversifying their portfolio. 50% of respondents say that they had turned to self funding, often "leveraging contract work and co-development" as a means of financing their own projects.

On the funding point, Elderkin said that publishers were "expecting more" from developers before giving them financing.

"We're also seeing private equity investments start to pull back and become more reserved"

"The overall consensus was that publishers are expecting more right out of the gate," she says. "They want your game to have a high number of wishlists and a social media following, and they want it to be in a very good state. You have to get something good enough to present, but you need funding to do that. If you don't have funding, you have to figure out how to self-fund and get yourself to that point. There's also the challenge, especially for indie studios, of having more studios than available funding. We're also seeing private equity investments start to pull back and become more reserved than they were during the pandemic."

Platform trends

PC remains dominant for developers, with 81% of respondents saying they are working on their upcoming project for this platform. PlayStation 5 came in at 45%, with Xbox Series X/S at 37%.

10% of respondents are working on projects for the next PlayStation console, while 8% are developing for Xbox's upcoming Project Helix. The number of developers working on virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality projects has collapsed from 8% to 3%. Asked if this is due to the changing focus of Oculus owner Meta, Elderkin says that this "could be part" of the reason why attention has dwindled.

"But I also think it's because we're not seeing many new announcements in the field. Steam is coming out with its own offering, so hopefully we'll see some growth in the future. Over the past couple of years, we've heard about VR studios shutting down, including the developers behind Moss, whose games I love. They're beautiful.

"Personally, I'm sad to see interest in VR decreasing right now, because I think there's a lot of value in that kind of immersive experience. But until we see more innovation in the space, I don't think people will focus on it. I think they've turned their attention elsewhere."

She continues: "As we see a decrease in use, we're also seeing less focus from Meta, Google, and other companies that were pursuing VR more heavily. They're moving away from it, and I think we're seeing the results. Developers don't want to make a game for a platform people aren't using or looking to expand and grow."

Game engines, crunch, and unions

Looking at engine use, Unreal and Unity came in at 35% and 28%, respectively, but were both down 7% and 2% respectively. This coincides with 23% of respondents saying that they were using a proprietary engine.

Crunch and overtime remain issues within the industry; 86% of developers say that they have worked over 40 hours in a week, with nearly half saying they needed or wanted to do this. 16% felt pressured to work longer hours. 8%, however, say they have experienced "mandatory overtime", aka crunch.

65% say that their mental health has suffered as a result of their job

63% of respondents say that this overwork could have been avoided, citing poor planning, project changes and leadership.

65% say that their mental health has suffered as a result of their job; 32% say they strongly agree that long hours and layoffs have taken a toll on their mental health.

On the topic of unionisation, 15% of US-based respondents are part of a union, a 3% increase year-on-year. 80% support unionisation within the industry, while 55% are interested in joining a union. That's a 7% drop; Elderkin initially suspected this was due to more respondents already being in unions, but in fact it was driven by an increase in respondents who were not in a union and are not interested in joining one.

For the past few years, the State of Gaming reports have made for quite stark and depressing reading. While there are still challenges to overcome, this time around, Elderkin is more optimistic about the industry looking forward.

"I think there are still a lot of challenges that are happening, and I do believe the ongoing layoffs have not contributed to a sense of stability," she says.

"One interesting statistic that we had was that folks who had been laid off sometime in the past two years and had since found another job experienced a much higher rate of job insecurity than those who had not been laid off. So there are impacts. However, one thing I am seeing this year that I didn't necessarily see in previous years is resilience, and that was really inspiring to me. We're seeing more respondents saying, 'I'm going to take it in my own hands. I'm making my own game. I'm starting my own studio.' We had a lot of students saying that in particular because they see they're entering a job market that is going to be challenging for them, so they're figuring out ways to do it themselves."

She concludes: "I'm seeing a lot of resilience and hope in the future, which was really nice to see after several years of very sad things."